After a long hot day, just what you want. Extra mirrors to see just how sweaty and tired you are…

His portrait even graced city archways.

Why fly? Thai long distance busses are outfitted with jet engines and can get you to your destination faster.

Views you can stare at for hours.

Hanging out with newfound friends

On the pathway leading up to the golden chedi, a row of brass bells is rung by the faithful – to help bring them good luck in life.

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The casino boomtown of Boten, full of Chinese gambling halls, brothels and karaoke bars.

And they even come with official license plates.

Which girl wouldn’t feel like a princess in the Barbie doll rickshaw?

Suspension bridges always make good photo opportunities!

All the way up Nam Phe I had been so looking forward to my daily dose of sugary drinks and cookies…

“Hey… Everything’s wet, we’re underwater!”

“How can that be, we’re in the middle of the desert?”

In our early morning stupor, it took a while to sink in what had happened.

Earlier that day we rolled into Mesquite, Nevada and decided to camp in the city park.

Now we knew how they maintained the park’s lush green field. It had an automatic watering system and we had set up our tent over one of the sprinkler heads.

Misery

Before the days of Gore-Tex, we donned plastic rain jackets that didn’t ‘breathe’. After an hour of pedaling our clothes were drenched in sweat.

That combined with cold temperatures had us wondering, “What are we doing here?”

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And for the elderly, a lap dog.

CCTV

China Central Television specializes in ‘over the top’ entertainment programs.

Modern Chinese architecture.

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At first, we thought that ‘KTV’ was the name of a hotel chain.
Then we were given a room behind the KTV karaoke bar…

Takeaways

And packaging is provided to help bring your purchases home.

In Disneyland you can get your picture taken with Mickey Mouse. In Lijang, with a minority girl in traditional dress.

Probably Han Chinese…

But this was one sign we could understand!

O.k., maybe there was a bit of traffic…

Dali salesmen are ‘hard-core’…

If we even dared to edge ahead on a red light, out came their finger to shoo us back.

Background

The photographic journey began in 1981 while pedaling across the U.S.A. During that summer I not only met my future wife Grace but also fell in love with photography.

In the 1990s I began shooting bicycle touring photos for multi projector slide show presentations with the accent on spectacular downhill sequences of 20 or more images through monumental scenery.

Grace cycled with red Karrimore panniers and wore a red shirt so that she could be seen from a vast distance. After a few years I noticed some of the downhill series contained shots which were good enough to view as a standalone picture.

So I began concentrating on single shots to try and capture the ‘true’ experience of bicycling through immense and often threatening landscapes and the Little Red Cyclist images were born.

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Bikecentennial ’76

In 1972 Dan and Lys Burden plus Greg and June Siple pedaled from Alaska to Argentina. En route, they conceived the idea for a bicycle tour across the United States to celebrate the nation’s bicentennial in 1976, naming the event Bikecentennial ’76. They created the Trans America trail which later turned into Adventure Cycling. More than 4,000 cyclists took part in the 1976 inaugural tours.

Peter Gostelow

Horses

Whereas Dutch people are born on bicycles – in the Susaamyr valley, they’re born on horses.

What!? Not even a can of Dinty Moore?

But then again, maybe not…

Preparation

Ronald Albronda read Wim Dussel’s book over cycling across the U.S.A. and then lent it to Paul. They thought, “If Wim can do it, we can do it too.” They met Tim van der Made via Bikecentennial Holland and after 3x pedaling up Bloemendaal hill, they were ready for the challenge.

As for Grace, she wanted to drive across the states with her girlfriend Wendy. Their parents weren’t happy with that plan since neither of them can read maps or repair cars. So they decided to cycle to the east coast on a Bikecentennial group tour. After a couple of day rides, they felt confident and ready for the upcoming trip.

In Astoria, Oregon the Dutch and American group members met for the first time.

The fact that we haven’t talked about bicycle repairs doesn’t mean that suddenly everything is going well. It has more to do with the fact that it is so boring to keep on talking about them. Nevertheless, we will give the ‘scores’ up to this moment. Joanie 18 flat tires, Patti 16 flat tires, Ronald 13 broken spokes, Paul 12 broken spokes and Tim 40 liters of beer.

Bungy cords

Just when you think that you can’t carry one more thing, that a six-pack of beer is a good idea, or the leader has asked you to carry the ‘groups cooking pan’ size army canteen, then the bungy cord comes to the rescue.

Good manners

In the midday heat, passing Missouri motorists handed us cold cans of beer. Paul & Tim gratefully accepted the gifts. The result can clearly be seen…

Exhibits in the Stone house museum.

We couldn’t resist re-writing the last sentence.

The ultimate street food is Chipsi Mayai; a potato-egg omelette fried in plenty of grease. Combine that with cold cokes and you can pedal a whole morning on just that one meal.